Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013: Alyssa Miller knows her icebergs

Sure, Kate Upton suffered through antarctic cold to deliver this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover — but she's not the only model in the mag who knows what it's like to freeze your bikini off.

Palmdale native Alyssa Miller, who appears in the swimsuit issue this year in shots from Australia's Whitsunday Beach, learned that lesson in Iceland a while back, on what she said was the craziest shoot she's ever been asked to do.

The crew flew into Reykjavik and drove eight hours to a site where icebergs fall off a glacier and into a lagoon, then wash up on the beach.

"I had to lay across an iceberg in a bikini," she told the Ministry last week, before the SI cover leaked. "I thought I was going to die. We had to do five minutes on, then take time off so I could warm up.

"But how can you go wrong in a place like that?"

And Miller should know — the 22-year-old has gone though three passports since she really got going with modeling at 15. "I just keep adding pages," she said, and is saving the books to show her kids and grandkids. "I don't think I've gone a month or two without going somewhere crazy."

Along the way, the New York-based model, who's marking her third time in the swimsuit edition, has managed to squeeze in some acting and improv classes

"I love doing it. I was really shy and socially awkward growing up," Miller said, adding: "I do it for myself. You make a fool of yourself, but it's fun."

With improv in particular, she said, "You break down all of your barriers and get out there," something that helps now that video is becoming more important in modeling.

Not that she would turn down an acting job if one came along. "I would love to be on 'Girls,' " she said. "Lena Dunham is a genius."